Elementary school MCAS scores fail to meet goals for fourth consecutive year

Thursday

Sep 25, 2008 at 2:00 AM

By Alicia Hull I&M Staff Writer

Nantucket Elementary School did not meet Adequate Yearly Progress for the fourth consecutive year in 2007-2008 and has dropped nine points in both math and literacy. “This has been building for many years,” said Assistant Superintendent Carlos Colley. “Improvement is seen each year, but in the younger grades it would be great to meet these expectations earlier, moving to proficiency faster.”

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) is required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Students in all schools and districts in Massachusetts are expected to achieve a proficient or advanced standing (the highest ratings on the examinations) in English language, arts/reading and mathematics by 2014.

When AYP is not met for two or more years in a row, the school must then face specific consequences. According to the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary education, schools that do not make AYP for two years are identified as “needing improvement” and parents are given the option of sending their child to another school that has met these requirements. On Nantucket, however, this is not always an option unless the child is sent to one of the island’s two private elementary schools.

“Those schools (Nantucket New School and The Lighthouse School) started to grow as we got worse, and that just can’t happen on Nantucket,” said Nantucket Elementary School Interim Principal John Miller. “Our schools play a role in community development. We need to support every child’s success.”

Nantucket Elementary School has not met the NCLB regulations for four years now and is forced into “corrective action.” According to the Massachusetts Education web site, corrective action may include making significant changes in curriculum, staffing or teaching philosophy. The school must focus on revising its two-year improvement plan, specifically addressing the student groups, grade levels and subjects that did not make the AYP standards.

At the school committee meeting on September 16th, a draft outlining areas of improvement for student learning were distributed in anticipation of the elementary school not meeting AYP requirements this year.

The document states, “we have to find ways to unify both the ways adults treat one another and how we must begin to focus deeply on children’s learning. Our work on culture will be serious and involve many hard conversations about better practices.” As the administration begins preliminary meetings to create a curriculum that will assist students in meeting the requirements for the next testing period in February and March, Colley is skeptical that a few months will be enough time.

“I don’t know as we put these things in place if it will be quick enough before the test in the spring,” he said. “It’s going to be a lot of work.”

During the rocky four years that Nantucket Elementary has been unable to meet AYP standards, the school has also been unable to keep a full time principal. The school continues its search, but is currently headed by Miller, a former Nantucket Elementary School Principal who led the institution to be named one of the nation’s 177 top elementary schools in 1993 as published by Redbook Magazine. Miller does not believe that the inconsistency in administration is necessarily in alignment with falling test scores.

“That may play a little bit of a role,” said Miller, “but I don’t want to hide behind it. We should be able to compete with other schools. We spent $18,899 per student last year, so it’s not for a lack of resources. The real issue is clarity. The whole system needs it in both teaching and learning. We lost sight of that no matter who the principal was.”

Nantucket Elementary school is not alone. Nearly half of all Massachusetts public schools failed to meet AYP standards this year. Half of these failed schools were located in non-urban districts like Nantucket. Massachusetts has one of the most rigorous standards for excellence in public school education - a standard Colley believes may be too high.

“The problem I see with it is the standard they are setting is that it’s not so low that ESL students or students with learning disabilities can ever meet these standards,” said Colley. “Everyone is suppose to be above average.”

Miller, however, believes these high standards should be raised for everyone in an attempt to make education exciting and vigorous.

“Our low performance is based on the entire student body - it’s everybody and we can’t just say it’s one group,” he said.

Regardless of how the problem occurred, members of the island community are now asking for improvement this school year.

“You never fire the team, you always fire the coach,” said School Committee Member Dr. Timothy Lepore. “I’m not pleased about this. We have well paid administrators–I want to see answers and results. These same teachers have done well teaching in the past. There is only one difference now.”

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